The Goa Cricket Association (GCA) has been steadily chipping way at the wealth passed on to it by its parent body - the Board of Control for Cricket in India - better known as the BCCI. And this is not good for cricket. Over the years the BCCI has been kind enough to pamper its affiliates with monetary benefits without any accountability.
A close look at the Goa Cricket Association reveals that it is not in the pink of health. With financial liabilities in terms of service tax and income tax almost amounting to Rs 20 crore a piece, one wonders if the GCA will ever climb out of the hole it has dug for itself. The BCCI turned out to be GCA’s messiah a fortnight back with a partial bail-out of Rs 9.5 crore, an act of benevolence which saved the association from the ire of the tax department. It is an undisclosed fact that the tax department had threatened to arrest GCA higher-ups and was armed with arrest warrants had the dues to remain unpaid by the March 31
deadline. In hindsight, a major incident was averted and the
GCA was saved a huge embarrassment - thanks to the BCCI.
However, the grim situation demands
answers to simple question.
For instance, how was all the money
spent? With Rs 25 crore flowing
per year from BCCI, the GCA ought
to have become a flourishing state
association, with more to show as
infrastructure spending and funding
for grassroots development. But
nothing concrete is being done along
these lines and cash, in lavish proportions,
appears to be expended on self
development and garnering support. And, that would mean on
business class air travel for office-bearers, stay at starred hotels,
foreign junkets and appeasing those in power to ensure smooth
sailing when the weather gets stormy. This has generally been the
GCA way of conducting its day-to-day affairs. With no mechanism
in place to keep a check on how the entire show is run behind
closed doors by the men who matter, it’s been a one-way drive
into near bankruptcy. Even the clubs, which have voting rights
are kept in the dark, which is no different from the way the BCCI
treats its state associations. Only those who bow down to the diktat
of those in power are paid the annual grants while others go
empty handed as raising one’s voice against the Chair is forbidden.
Now that the Supreme Court has come down heavily on the
cash-rich BCCI, saying that the cricket body is run like a ‘mutually
beneficial society’ and ‘practically corrupting’ its members by
not seeking any explanation on how crores of rupees allotted to
them was being spent, the time is ripe for the BCCI and its state affiliates
likes the GCA to mend their ways and become more transparent
in their dealings, or face the consequences. Like the parent
body, the GCA will now be compelled to introspect and come out
with plausible explanation on how a rich state association has no
money to pay tax. A series of checks and balances are necessary if
the GCA has to function in a more transparent manner. Change, if
it comes, will not be voluntary, but from the hard end of the stick,
preferably wielded by the Supreme Court.
